Butzel elects Javon R. David and Mitchell Zajac shareholders
DETROIT, Mich. – Butzel attorneys Javon R. David and Mitchell Zajac have been elected Shareholders. Previously, David and Zajac were associate attorneys.
David and Zajac are members of Butzel’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution Practice Group, one of the firm’s largest practices areas.
The Practice Group has a distinguished history of successfully handling arbitration and litigation matters including a range of complex issues and areas of litigation, including appeals, bankruptcy and restructuring, business entity disputes, commercial litigation, product liability, professional liability, real estate litigation, technology and electronic discovery issues, and white collar criminal defense and investigations.
Javon David
David concentrates her practice in the areas of commercial litigation, media and entertainment law, and products liability. She has extensive litigation experience, successfully handling matters from the onset of suit through trial.
In 2021, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Michigan Defense Trial Counsel Association (MDTC). She accepted this appointment after serving as Co-Chair of the Trial Practice Section of the MDTC.
David holds several leadership positions in the legal field. She serves on the Business Court and Counsel Committee for the Oakland County Bar Association (OCBA). She also serves as Deputy General Counsel for the Michigan Press Association (MPA), and on the litigation, insurance, and advertising/commercial speech committees for the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC). In addition, David serves on the Board of Governors for the Young Leaders Council, Original Equipment Suppliers Association – Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (OESA-MEMA).
She earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, graduating with honors. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating Magna Cum Laude, from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, with concentrations in History, Political Science, and Psychology.
David has been named to the list of Michigan Rising Stars in Super Lawyers magazine for 2017-2021. She also was named among Michigan’s Top Women Lawyers from 2017-2021. David was named as Ones to Watch in commercial litigation by Best Lawyers in America in 2020 and 2021.
David is admitted to practice law in the State of Michigan, the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, and the United States District Court, Western District of Michigan. She also is a certified mediator through the American Bar Association.
Mitchell Zajac
Zajac’s practice also includes a focus on automotive, intellectual property, regulatory and emissions compliance, and sports and entertainment law. He is a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Before joining Butzel as a summer associate in May 2017, while attending law school full time, Zajac was an engineer at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). He moved quickly through the ranks at FCA. He was responsible for multiple ground-breaking development projects, led the international engineering team producing the Ram ProMaster City, and had a leading role in FCA’s corporate audit group with responsibilities in safety/regulatory compliance, quality and purchasing.
Zajac has practiced in six federal courts, the U.S. Patent Office, and the U.S. International Trade Commission. Zajac’s career as an attorney builds on his strengths and experiences he gained while at FCA and has helped him to grow his practice beyond the automotive industry. Zajac has helped several clients manage and craft IP portfolios in other unique industries, like medicine, light-weighting, and industrial manufacturing. He also has experience in complex patent, trade secret and commercial litigation cases.
His clients include automotive and transportation companies developing IP portfolios, multiple start-up companies with $4M+ capitalization developing strategic national partners, and multi-million-dollar global automotive clients navigating international trade issues.
Between trials and hearings in Detroit and Washington D.C. on behalf of Detroit auto suppliers, sitting first-chair and taking depositions across the U.S. and around the world (including London, Singapore, and Taiwan), Zajac also spends time presenting across the country in remanufacturing, automotive IP, and automotive contracting and supply agreements.
Zajac attended WMU-Cooley (J.D., 2017) after graduating from Western Michigan University with Bachelors’ degrees in Mechanical Engineering and German (2012) and a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering (2013). He was a Rhodes Scholar finalist (2012); interned for Congressman Fred Upton; and was a four-year starter on the Division 1 football team at WMU. Zajac was named to Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s 2020 Class of Up & Coming Lawyers. Moreover, he received the Detroit Bar Association’s “One to Watch” Award in 2019. Zajac has been named to Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch, Commercial Litigation, 2022 and DBusiness magazine’s Top Lawyers of Metro Detroit, Intellectual Property and Patent Law, 2021 and 2022.
Further, Zajac is very active in the community. He was elected to the Livingston County Board of Commissioners. Moreover, Zajac was appointed to serve a four-year term on the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School Board of Directors.
At the same time, Zajac is an advocate for continuous education and public service. He’s the Association for Child Development (ACD) President, a non-profit organization facilitating ~$30M/annum through the USDA CACF Program providing healthy meals to children across the Midwest. He has helped achieve financial stability, organizational structure, and leads strategic expansion of ACD programs to more children and to provide education to more families.
Zajac dedicates hundreds of hours each year coaching high school football in Howell, turning his standard 12-hour workdays into 15+ hour days in order to work with and mentor young athletes.
